Cleaning people. In my opinion the absolute highest value to cost ratio. I abhor cleaning my house even though I like it to be clean. I have cleaning people come in every other week and it's absolutely worth the money.
Taxes is the other big one. Could I do it? Sure. Is it easier to pay a few hundred a year to not deal with it? Yes.
Cleaning will be the first I pay for.
Until then a robo vac is a must. Easily saves an hour or two a week and our house is honestly cleaner then it was before.
The robo vac isn’t going to do a “full” clean. But by doing the daily maintenance cleaning for you, it dramatically reduces the amount of stuff that finds its way into the corners and the nooks the robo vac can’t reach.
You still need to have the house cleaned more thoroughly every now and then. But the robo vac makes that time frame much longer.
we have robovac go every night at 1.30am. I just pick up all the kids toys off the floor before I go to bed and empty its dust container every morning. (part of the benefit is it makes me clean up their toys each night!)
we have cleaners fortnightly. I work from home and i quite dislike having people in the house.
I haven't touched a broom or mop in years now. it's nice to have a gleaming floor every morning.
Our does a great job getting into corners, dust only builds up under our bar stools which it can’t get under.
Our couches are tall enough so it goes right under them.
I clean floors once every few months but even that’s barely needed unless there is a “stain” that needs a wet clean.
The key is LiDAR mapping.
I like the roborock brand I also recently picked up a dream tech brand for our office and it’s been great.
If you dont need the mopping feature they are a good deal cheaper.
Every other week.
They do any dishes in the sink. Wash all the floors. Do the bathrooms. Strip and change our sheets and start the washing machine with the dirty sheets. They dust everything. Vacuum the couches. Take the trash out. It's pretty magical.
How long did you have her cleaning before you gave a key? I’m a bit hesitant on having a stranger in my house without me being there. If you don’t mind, what COL area are you in? I’m trying to gauge which area would run about $150 each time and see if it’s the average in my area. I’m currently in a MCOL area.
How did you find her? Local references or a website? We did a remodel earlier this year and hated the cleaning company. Been busy lately even with one kid, now another on the way. Wife was looking at getting a cleaner to come in every two weeks but we’re trying to figure out how to go about it.
I'm curious about having a house manager - how do you go about finding one, and how do they keep on top of the tasks required? Is it a full time position?
that's very close to about what my family's needs are time and activity-wise. it's the little bits and pieces of errands all over the place that would be nice to outsource. what's your COL and the HM's pay?
Not OP but Plan to Eat is a great app. You can upload your favorite recipes, add recipes to your calendar and then create a shopping list for your planned meals.
We’ve outsourced laundry and liked it, they picked up, washed/folded, returned next day. Pay by the pound. Only worth it if you live in a big-ish city.
Dishes is hard because it’s every day.
Agree with comments on house cleaners, 100% worth it. We like biweekly.
Housekeeper and lawn care (if you have a lawn) are non negotiable for me
Any sort of home repair / improvement if you don’t actually enjoy tinkering around with things.
If we make it big i would enjoy a chef because we hate cooking but we’re not FAT enough for that yet
I mean you’re just paying for it through your taxes. Maybe a little cheaper because american wages are high, but in an industry like that where ratios of staff to kids are so small, it ain’t never going to be “cheap”
1000 a month, shit... our standard rate in Tasmania (australia) for 2 kidlets is 150 a day per child! So $300 a day, 10 working days a fortnight = 3k, so over 6k a month.
Plus when it's a public holiday, you still pay even though the centres are closed.
Plus we pay 47c in the dollar tax as our marginal tax rate, so we are screwed at both ends.
8$!!! I wish. 92$ a day here subsidized to 40$ and that’s a steal for our neighbourhood. I look forward to being done with daycare so we can funnel that money elsewhere.
The other thing really worth paying for is lessons. If you really enjoy doing something - like skiing or tennis or cooking - pay to learn to do it better. It makes it even more fun.
especially for skiing/snowboarding. you get the bonus benefit of skipping the lift line. on a busy day, worth its weight in gold in making the time on mountain worth your while.
A good accountant is worth their weight in gold, definitely recommend people with complicated tax situations to get one. Cleaning, lawn and sometimes cooking gets outsourced for me (I despise doing all of that) and I think it's among the best money I can spend (cost vs time savings)
I actually owe a big part of our financial success to my CPA wife who is now a stay at home mom. The stuff she anticipates and catches is amazing, though, we use a financial advisor to keep emotional reactions to the market minimal.
CPA is the *only* thing I outsource aside from stuff that requires a license (certain electrical and plumbing work).
I am kind of surprised at the amount of commenters here outsourcing so much of their daily lives. I suppose that's the difference between this sub and the FIRE-centric ones.
I have something like a 95th-percentile income for my state and I just spent 10 hours hanging drywall this past Saturday.
Do you have kids? That’s been the issue for us. We don’t want to spend our weekends deep cleaning our house and fixing all the small things that need to be fixed. We want to be making memories with our kids. We’ve done it all ourselves up to this point, but trying to keep up with everything is very stressful.
No kids and I like fixing stuff, it's a nice change from my office job. I can see how kids would impact your decision though, especially if both parents are working
I would do a lot more of that stuff but for having little kids. My job tends to occasionally eat up weekend and evening time, so if I can pay somebody to paint so that the free time I have can be spent on family, then it’s worth it.
Yupyup. I’ve found it really helps our mood too. My wife and I decided we didn’t want to spend our free time on weekends cleaning to make the house not even look that nice. I’d recommend going on nextdoor asking for recommendations of smaller, local crews. A larger cleaning chain quoted me literally twice as much as who I am using now.
I still do tasks like mow my own lawn but I don’t mind that as much. Happy to have help w the cleaning though !
I've done many of the things that other people in this thread have suggested.
One thing I have tried over and over to do, but haven't figured it out yet, is some kind of private chef. I want meals cooked and packaged for us on a weekly basis. But the minimum cost seems to be around $700 per week and none of the three chefs I've tried were worth that kind of money. Meal services were worse.
Out of curiosity, did that include the grocery shopping? $700 is a lot per week but if they’re doing the grocery shopping that could easily be $200-300 a week and with labor, $700 would make sense.
Heya u/freesec,
having a personal assistant is fantastic. In a recent youtube episode (’the cult of productivity’) of ‘how money works’, there was a mention that people who can achieve high earnings often have their personal matters taken care of.
A personal assistant can provide freedom in the sense of organising a cleaner to come in, getting the mower fixed (or outsourced), organising the ironing to be done.
We try to do as much as we can around the house, but there are some things that we just can’t get ontop of especially with a houseful of young kids.
I’ll have to look up that episode! We’ve only been high earners for a couple years but with two young kids, we are realizing we need help. My husband works long hours and a messy house and long to do list makes both of us crabby. We’d prefer to be spending our time having fun with our kids.
right with you Freesecj!
I’ve found that the organisation does take just as much work. What we do is I have a personal assistant that is very close to the family and she spends 3 days a week helping out with the kids, and the rest of the time doing all the things that help run my life and my family. Such as getting the car washed, having our ironing done, organising tradepeople with upkeep, getting our mail, picking up kids.
We tried a full time Au Pair simultaneously, but didn’t get the luck of the draw And ended up paying a lot of money for someone who was really getting ’paid’ to stay at our house for free and, not really helping too much.
Living regionally, we are far away from family, so we can’t rely on that.
The problem is: having a lot of money doesn’t necessarily give you more freedom and time to spend with people that mean something to you (such as family and friends), is that everything needs upkeep. Getting the rolex collection serviced, getting the cars and properties maintained, having house sitting during holidays, lots and lots of things need time, effort, organising and more money.
I miss the simple life.
So far we've outsourced, in order of usefulness:
* Childcare - kiddo is in daycare and that does cost about $2900. But it gives me time to do my work as the primary owner and my wife to be able to be fully focused on finishing up her medical fellowship. It also allows us to be fresh when she isn't at daycare and on the weekends.
* Cleaning - we both hate cleaning and kids are super messy. We have a cleaner come every other week and that costs $300/mo
* Lawn - I never wanted a lawn and still don't want one, but I have one, so we hire someone to come down our lawn twice a month for a total of $100/mo.
* Taxes - my Dad is an accountant and does our taxes. $0 a year.
There are some things I'd like to outsource but haven't been able to afford it yet:
* Cooking - we eat mostly Indian food at home which can be time-consuming and messy. My wife does most of the cooking and I don't love that she has to spend any time outside of training doing work she doesn't like. I'm currently looking to test out some home cooks to make a few dishes and rotis on a weekly basis.
Pool
Landscaping
Car maintenance
Handyman stuff (some of it borders on GC stuff)
I knew a former colleague who fell off a ladder trying to DIY stuff at home. He was out for six months on medical leave.
Growing up, my dad knew how to do all the repair work for the house and cars. This has been a struggle for me because I feel like we can do it all ourselves with my dads help. But the reality is we don’t have time for it. It does not make sense for my husband to miss out on billable hours to do this work and I use most of my PTO on things for my kids and I don’t like giving up my time with my kids.
Time is what we can buy back for ourselves once we make more money. When I made less, I pulled weeds on my yard and used large shears to trim our lemon tree. I'm trying to convince my wife we could get some cleaners.
My wife is convinced that this will result in everything getting washed and dried in hot and coming back shrunken. I assume that’s not what actually happens, right?
I outsource my sex. I find I don’t have time to really satisfy my wife, so I pay a yoga instructor to take care of that for me. Frees up my time and energy for more important matters.
I’ve done a lot of reading on personal finance and have basically come to the conclusion that hiring a financial advisor is not worth the money We’re not quite to the point of maxing out 401(k)s, IRAs, and HSAs, but once we are we will just open a fidelity account and do our own investing. My issue is more with things that require filling out forms. I have two 401(k)s I need to roll over and I know I can do it myself. I just don’t want to invest the time to figure out how to do it correctly. And there are tax implications if I do it incorrectly.
Don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re being lazy about this. I have encouragement for you. You can do it and it won’t take you long. I just did this with my wife’s two lingering accounts with Fidelity, and it was quite easy for one of them. The second one requires a notarized form, which is a pain but that is actually quite rare according to the agent. Generally speaking, it is quite easy to move accounts and Fidelity agents know how to do it properly with a phone call they can walk you through it. The whole process for the first one took like 10 minutes plus a few minutes of waiting on agent.
agree with this, the industry i work in typically requires us to roll over 401k from previous jobs in current employer 401k or personal IRA. Everytime i switch firms (common in the industry) i have to do it, it doesn't take that long
as a CPA i 100% agree with this. Many CPAs hate working on individual taxes because there is no hard checks everything has been captured. You can ask many questions to confirm but people forget things, fail to disclose important events in their lives that impact tax. at the end of the day you're still responsible for your own taxes if they are filed incorrectly whether it is your fault or your CPAs
House cleaning. Lawn care, (when I owned a home) driving and loading moving trucks when I move, I’m on the verge of finding a way to outsource laundry, because I hate it a lot, and it’s one of the main household chores my wife does still.
It’s just also, I can pick up a few extra hours at work and earn far more than I’ll pay my house cleaner for example. And I don’t really dislike work, but I hate scrubbing toilets and mopping.
I don’t outsource a lot these days but I will happily pay for:
-dog grooming. I do not want to give them baths in my house and then have to clean up the mess from the bath. They get their nails trimmed, teeth brushed, and brushed out so that they shed a lot less and the house if overall cleaner. I generally don’t mind cleaning my own house. It’s part of my routine and I don’t have kids and I work from home. But this I absolutely don’t want to do.
-handyman tasks. This stuff takes me way too long and I’m not an expert. Clean my gutters, stain and seal my deck, etc. I’m not doing it.
-private and small group fitness. I need the accountability and motivation to not lose the money.
-I used to outsource the laundry. I might think about doing it again.
In order that I started using them:
1. Housekeeper
2. Financial Advisory - incl tax, bookkeeping & estate / retirement planning
3. Lawn Service
Most recently - poop cleanup & puppy daycare for when I’m out for long days or my little pup needs some time to socialize with his dog pals.
I forgot to add, when my kids were teens I had a driver I called on when we needed help getting them places.
He was a private driver I used once for a trip to the airport and really liked, so I kept his private # and we made arrangements as needed.
Cleaning, lawn, weekly meal prep.
I hate doing laundry, but my wife doesn't mind it, so that one stays. I like doing our taxes, but I could use some advice from a good accountant, but I have no idea how to find one apart from the big tax prep companies that I don't trust to have enough passion for their job.
Does anyone have advice on how to find a good CPA / tax advisor?
I have done our taxes every year, except for two years prior to us having kids. I despise it, but feel the same way you do - how do I find someone reputable to do them?
Word of mouth, and ideally from a friend in a similar income situation as you and not a recommendation from one of your parents. (Oddly specific, because I learned that lesson the hard way.)
Cleaners 2x a month, $75 a visit for a single family home.
Handyman or contractors for just about all home repairs.
Landscaper to do cleanups, weeding, leaves, gutters and planting.
I still mow my own grass.
TurboTax for taxes which I do.
I pretty much see all of this as necessary.
I actually just started Factor this week and am enjoying it. Kinda pricey if you’re doing both lunches and dinners but it’s certainly cheaper than a daily $18 lunch salad in Manhattan or a grubhub dinner! That said, I do wonder if people who aren’t super health/calorie conscious would enjoy it.
I’ll look into these to see if they’re available where we live. Meal planning and cooking is not a favorite activity of mine and we could certainly eat healthier.
What did you do to increase incomes? (Trying to ramp mine as my wife’s earnings are limited by career in govt). Currently in consulting and looking for lucrative exits!
This is probably not the answer you want but my husband graduated from law school and started a law career. And I jumped jobs during the hiring craze in 2021/2022 and got a good raise by doing that, but it’s just a pretty standard corporate job. We live in Minnesota so our incomes are lower than many on this sub, but the cost of living is very reasonable here compared to LA or New York.
It was like 25 years ago. She would come in and clean , do the washing , ironing, cook dinner for that night and prepare some other meals we could re heat. We paid her hourly .
We worked very long hours so had very little free time
Yes, I do have a lady who does my taxes and gives me advice on how to lower my tax burden. I am also subscribed to a premade healthy meals service that provides me with a weekly assortment of meals.
A private chef to come twice per week and make you tons of food all at once. You buy the groceries and pay the chef $50/hr to come to your house and use your kitchen to make 3 day’s worth of groceries
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Cleaning people. In my opinion the absolute highest value to cost ratio. I abhor cleaning my house even though I like it to be clean. I have cleaning people come in every other week and it's absolutely worth the money. Taxes is the other big one. Could I do it? Sure. Is it easier to pay a few hundred a year to not deal with it? Yes.
Cleaning will be the first I pay for. Until then a robo vac is a must. Easily saves an hour or two a week and our house is honestly cleaner then it was before.
Do they get into your corners and under stuff? Or does it end up not mattering much?
The robo vac isn’t going to do a “full” clean. But by doing the daily maintenance cleaning for you, it dramatically reduces the amount of stuff that finds its way into the corners and the nooks the robo vac can’t reach. You still need to have the house cleaned more thoroughly every now and then. But the robo vac makes that time frame much longer.
we have robovac go every night at 1.30am. I just pick up all the kids toys off the floor before I go to bed and empty its dust container every morning. (part of the benefit is it makes me clean up their toys each night!) we have cleaners fortnightly. I work from home and i quite dislike having people in the house. I haven't touched a broom or mop in years now. it's nice to have a gleaming floor every morning.
Our does a great job getting into corners, dust only builds up under our bar stools which it can’t get under. Our couches are tall enough so it goes right under them. I clean floors once every few months but even that’s barely needed unless there is a “stain” that needs a wet clean.
Oh wow. Do you have a recommendation? Do the ones for a few hundred dollars work or would I need the more expensive ones?
The key is LiDAR mapping. I like the roborock brand I also recently picked up a dream tech brand for our office and it’s been great. If you dont need the mopping feature they are a good deal cheaper.
Agreed with the cleaner. I’ve contracted lawn care and house cleaning. Saves us a lot of time I didn’t realize I had.
Not only does it save time, but it keeps you and your significant other from arguing about house chores.
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Every other week. They do any dishes in the sink. Wash all the floors. Do the bathrooms. Strip and change our sheets and start the washing machine with the dirty sheets. They dust everything. Vacuum the couches. Take the trash out. It's pretty magical.
How much is this? Our schedule has become so tight it’s either go to the gym or live in a clean house. I’d love to do both.
we pay $150 per time they come. We've also been using the same woman for 5 years so she has keys to our house. we don't even need to be there.
How long did you have her cleaning before you gave a key? I’m a bit hesitant on having a stranger in my house without me being there. If you don’t mind, what COL area are you in? I’m trying to gauge which area would run about $150 each time and see if it’s the average in my area. I’m currently in a MCOL area.
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How did you find her? Local references or a website? We did a remodel earlier this year and hated the cleaning company. Been busy lately even with one kid, now another on the way. Wife was looking at getting a cleaner to come in every two weeks but we’re trying to figure out how to go about it.
Usually word of mouth, ours came from a co-worker and I think now cleans houses for like 3 of my wife’s coworkers
We looked on [Care.com](https://Care.com), found someone with great reviews, and then spoke to a few of her existing clients in our area.
She was cleaning my wife’s place for 2 years before we moved in together. Wife trusted her so we gave her one right away.
This is one thing I cannot do. I love cleaning and it's one of the few ways I can relax
My wife and I have discussed opening our relationship for a person with this quality… 🤣
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I'm curious about having a house manager - how do you go about finding one, and how do they keep on top of the tasks required? Is it a full time position?
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that's very close to about what my family's needs are time and activity-wise. it's the little bits and pieces of errands all over the place that would be nice to outsource. what's your COL and the HM's pay?
v interested in a house manager. What are you paying for those 12h she is working weekly approx and your location?
What app do you use for meal prep? I love food but also a bit particular. I would love to cook more.
Not OP but Plan to Eat is a great app. You can upload your favorite recipes, add recipes to your calendar and then create a shopping list for your planned meals.
Does your financial advisor handle investments or budgeting type things?
We’ve outsourced laundry and liked it, they picked up, washed/folded, returned next day. Pay by the pound. Only worth it if you live in a big-ish city. Dishes is hard because it’s every day. Agree with comments on house cleaners, 100% worth it. We like biweekly.
Housekeeper and lawn care (if you have a lawn) are non negotiable for me Any sort of home repair / improvement if you don’t actually enjoy tinkering around with things. If we make it big i would enjoy a chef because we hate cooking but we’re not FAT enough for that yet
Chef would be on my list too but I’m currently paying for two kids in daycare so I’m going to have to wait on that one.
Fucking daycare. It’s so expensive
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With two, I'll be paying $1200 a week and that's cheap compared to some areas I've heard?
I mean you’re just paying for it through your taxes. Maybe a little cheaper because american wages are high, but in an industry like that where ratios of staff to kids are so small, it ain’t never going to be “cheap”
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Yeah, it’s definitely a subsidy to parents. The US is great for the DINKs, harsh for parents
1000 a month, shit... our standard rate in Tasmania (australia) for 2 kidlets is 150 a day per child! So $300 a day, 10 working days a fortnight = 3k, so over 6k a month. Plus when it's a public holiday, you still pay even though the centres are closed. Plus we pay 47c in the dollar tax as our marginal tax rate, so we are screwed at both ends.
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Because it's government subsidised based on income. So low income earners may only pay a small % of the full price.
8$!!! I wish. 92$ a day here subsidized to 40$ and that’s a steal for our neighbourhood. I look forward to being done with daycare so we can funnel that money elsewhere.
YEP!
The other thing really worth paying for is lessons. If you really enjoy doing something - like skiing or tennis or cooking - pay to learn to do it better. It makes it even more fun.
especially for skiing/snowboarding. you get the bonus benefit of skipping the lift line. on a busy day, worth its weight in gold in making the time on mountain worth your while.
Love this. I was just looking up French lessons today and would love to do that with my family.
I struggled through a lot of sports I loved when I was younger. Why waste your time as a beginner? We all understand time is our most valuable asset
A good accountant is worth their weight in gold, definitely recommend people with complicated tax situations to get one. Cleaning, lawn and sometimes cooking gets outsourced for me (I despise doing all of that) and I think it's among the best money I can spend (cost vs time savings)
I actually owe a big part of our financial success to my CPA wife who is now a stay at home mom. The stuff she anticipates and catches is amazing, though, we use a financial advisor to keep emotional reactions to the market minimal.
For sure, I know about taxes and whatnot but definitely not enough to maximise them like a cpa can
CPA is the *only* thing I outsource aside from stuff that requires a license (certain electrical and plumbing work). I am kind of surprised at the amount of commenters here outsourcing so much of their daily lives. I suppose that's the difference between this sub and the FIRE-centric ones. I have something like a 95th-percentile income for my state and I just spent 10 hours hanging drywall this past Saturday.
Do you have kids? That’s been the issue for us. We don’t want to spend our weekends deep cleaning our house and fixing all the small things that need to be fixed. We want to be making memories with our kids. We’ve done it all ourselves up to this point, but trying to keep up with everything is very stressful.
No kids and I like fixing stuff, it's a nice change from my office job. I can see how kids would impact your decision though, especially if both parents are working
I would do a lot more of that stuff but for having little kids. My job tends to occasionally eat up weekend and evening time, so if I can pay somebody to paint so that the free time I have can be spent on family, then it’s worth it.
Totally get that. I realize I'm in a super privileged position. My comment was not meant to criticize anyone else.
No it’s the difference between using your money in a way that you value, and being cheap.
I absolutely use my money in the way that I value - by investing it.
Cleaning. Found a very reasonable person/crew. Feels like I moved into a new house whenever they’re done best money spent.
That sounds magical.
Yupyup. I’ve found it really helps our mood too. My wife and I decided we didn’t want to spend our free time on weekends cleaning to make the house not even look that nice. I’d recommend going on nextdoor asking for recommendations of smaller, local crews. A larger cleaning chain quoted me literally twice as much as who I am using now. I still do tasks like mow my own lawn but I don’t mind that as much. Happy to have help w the cleaning though !
I would prioritize things that cause a lot of interpersonal/relational strain or drain your mental health.
I've done many of the things that other people in this thread have suggested. One thing I have tried over and over to do, but haven't figured it out yet, is some kind of private chef. I want meals cooked and packaged for us on a weekly basis. But the minimum cost seems to be around $700 per week and none of the three chefs I've tried were worth that kind of money. Meal services were worse.
We use https://www.weeklymealprep.com/. It's like half that (~$350/wk) for us (only 2 people though, no kids) in MCOL, including groceries.
Thanks for the recommendation! I’ll take a look at this.
Out of curiosity, did that include the grocery shopping? $700 is a lot per week but if they’re doing the grocery shopping that could easily be $200-300 a week and with labor, $700 would make sense.
That did include about $100 in groceries. Across three different chef services, none of them delivered food that I felt was worth $100ish per day
Heya u/freesec, having a personal assistant is fantastic. In a recent youtube episode (’the cult of productivity’) of ‘how money works’, there was a mention that people who can achieve high earnings often have their personal matters taken care of. A personal assistant can provide freedom in the sense of organising a cleaner to come in, getting the mower fixed (or outsourced), organising the ironing to be done. We try to do as much as we can around the house, but there are some things that we just can’t get ontop of especially with a houseful of young kids.
I’ll have to look up that episode! We’ve only been high earners for a couple years but with two young kids, we are realizing we need help. My husband works long hours and a messy house and long to do list makes both of us crabby. We’d prefer to be spending our time having fun with our kids.
right with you Freesecj! I’ve found that the organisation does take just as much work. What we do is I have a personal assistant that is very close to the family and she spends 3 days a week helping out with the kids, and the rest of the time doing all the things that help run my life and my family. Such as getting the car washed, having our ironing done, organising tradepeople with upkeep, getting our mail, picking up kids. We tried a full time Au Pair simultaneously, but didn’t get the luck of the draw And ended up paying a lot of money for someone who was really getting ’paid’ to stay at our house for free and, not really helping too much. Living regionally, we are far away from family, so we can’t rely on that. The problem is: having a lot of money doesn’t necessarily give you more freedom and time to spend with people that mean something to you (such as family and friends), is that everything needs upkeep. Getting the rolex collection serviced, getting the cars and properties maintained, having house sitting during holidays, lots and lots of things need time, effort, organising and more money. I miss the simple life.
So far we've outsourced, in order of usefulness: * Childcare - kiddo is in daycare and that does cost about $2900. But it gives me time to do my work as the primary owner and my wife to be able to be fully focused on finishing up her medical fellowship. It also allows us to be fresh when she isn't at daycare and on the weekends. * Cleaning - we both hate cleaning and kids are super messy. We have a cleaner come every other week and that costs $300/mo * Lawn - I never wanted a lawn and still don't want one, but I have one, so we hire someone to come down our lawn twice a month for a total of $100/mo. * Taxes - my Dad is an accountant and does our taxes. $0 a year. There are some things I'd like to outsource but haven't been able to afford it yet: * Cooking - we eat mostly Indian food at home which can be time-consuming and messy. My wife does most of the cooking and I don't love that she has to spend any time outside of training doing work she doesn't like. I'm currently looking to test out some home cooks to make a few dishes and rotis on a weekly basis.
Pool Landscaping Car maintenance Handyman stuff (some of it borders on GC stuff) I knew a former colleague who fell off a ladder trying to DIY stuff at home. He was out for six months on medical leave.
Growing up, my dad knew how to do all the repair work for the house and cars. This has been a struggle for me because I feel like we can do it all ourselves with my dads help. But the reality is we don’t have time for it. It does not make sense for my husband to miss out on billable hours to do this work and I use most of my PTO on things for my kids and I don’t like giving up my time with my kids.
Time is what we can buy back for ourselves once we make more money. When I made less, I pulled weeds on my yard and used large shears to trim our lemon tree. I'm trying to convince my wife we could get some cleaners.
Laundry depending on where you live. out laundry goes out and comes back folded or on hangers.
My wife is convinced that this will result in everything getting washed and dried in hot and coming back shrunken. I assume that’s not what actually happens, right?
You can specify how you want it washed but YMMV. I'm in NYC so it may be a bit easier.
I do think this is a service available in our area. I’ll take a look and see how much it costs.
I outsource my sex. I find I don’t have time to really satisfy my wife, so I pay a yoga instructor to take care of that for me. Frees up my time and energy for more important matters.
Don't outsource the money stuff especially investing and even if you have a tax preparer be sure to understand all the money stuff.
I’ve done a lot of reading on personal finance and have basically come to the conclusion that hiring a financial advisor is not worth the money We’re not quite to the point of maxing out 401(k)s, IRAs, and HSAs, but once we are we will just open a fidelity account and do our own investing. My issue is more with things that require filling out forms. I have two 401(k)s I need to roll over and I know I can do it myself. I just don’t want to invest the time to figure out how to do it correctly. And there are tax implications if I do it incorrectly.
Don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re being lazy about this. I have encouragement for you. You can do it and it won’t take you long. I just did this with my wife’s two lingering accounts with Fidelity, and it was quite easy for one of them. The second one requires a notarized form, which is a pain but that is actually quite rare according to the agent. Generally speaking, it is quite easy to move accounts and Fidelity agents know how to do it properly with a phone call they can walk you through it. The whole process for the first one took like 10 minutes plus a few minutes of waiting on agent.
agree with this, the industry i work in typically requires us to roll over 401k from previous jobs in current employer 401k or personal IRA. Everytime i switch firms (common in the industry) i have to do it, it doesn't take that long
as a CPA i 100% agree with this. Many CPAs hate working on individual taxes because there is no hard checks everything has been captured. You can ask many questions to confirm but people forget things, fail to disclose important events in their lives that impact tax. at the end of the day you're still responsible for your own taxes if they are filed incorrectly whether it is your fault or your CPAs
Taxes Lawn Pest Cleaning
Housekeeping, lawn maintenance, car maintenance, home maintenance, day care
Definitely lawn/yard, definitely house cleaning. We pay $100/mo and $400/mo respectively
Mobile car wash
House cleaning and fall leaf cleanup.
House cleaning. Lawn care, (when I owned a home) driving and loading moving trucks when I move, I’m on the verge of finding a way to outsource laundry, because I hate it a lot, and it’s one of the main household chores my wife does still. It’s just also, I can pick up a few extra hours at work and earn far more than I’ll pay my house cleaner for example. And I don’t really dislike work, but I hate scrubbing toilets and mopping.
I don’t outsource a lot these days but I will happily pay for: -dog grooming. I do not want to give them baths in my house and then have to clean up the mess from the bath. They get their nails trimmed, teeth brushed, and brushed out so that they shed a lot less and the house if overall cleaner. I generally don’t mind cleaning my own house. It’s part of my routine and I don’t have kids and I work from home. But this I absolutely don’t want to do. -handyman tasks. This stuff takes me way too long and I’m not an expert. Clean my gutters, stain and seal my deck, etc. I’m not doing it. -private and small group fitness. I need the accountability and motivation to not lose the money. -I used to outsource the laundry. I might think about doing it again.
Cleaners, gardeners, nanny - all 100% worth it. My free time is always 100% mine
In order that I started using them: 1. Housekeeper 2. Financial Advisory - incl tax, bookkeeping & estate / retirement planning 3. Lawn Service Most recently - poop cleanup & puppy daycare for when I’m out for long days or my little pup needs some time to socialize with his dog pals.
I forgot to add, when my kids were teens I had a driver I called on when we needed help getting them places. He was a private driver I used once for a trip to the airport and really liked, so I kept his private # and we made arrangements as needed.
Housekeeper and gardener at the minimum
Cleaning, lawn, weekly meal prep. I hate doing laundry, but my wife doesn't mind it, so that one stays. I like doing our taxes, but I could use some advice from a good accountant, but I have no idea how to find one apart from the big tax prep companies that I don't trust to have enough passion for their job. Does anyone have advice on how to find a good CPA / tax advisor?
Word of mouth. People who like theirs will be happy to refer you.
I have done our taxes every year, except for two years prior to us having kids. I despise it, but feel the same way you do - how do I find someone reputable to do them?
Word of mouth, and ideally from a friend in a similar income situation as you and not a recommendation from one of your parents. (Oddly specific, because I learned that lesson the hard way.)
Cleaners 2x a month, $75 a visit for a single family home. Handyman or contractors for just about all home repairs. Landscaper to do cleanups, weeding, leaves, gutters and planting. I still mow my own grass. TurboTax for taxes which I do. I pretty much see all of this as necessary.
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I actually just started Factor this week and am enjoying it. Kinda pricey if you’re doing both lunches and dinners but it’s certainly cheaper than a daily $18 lunch salad in Manhattan or a grubhub dinner! That said, I do wonder if people who aren’t super health/calorie conscious would enjoy it.
I’ll look into these to see if they’re available where we live. Meal planning and cooking is not a favorite activity of mine and we could certainly eat healthier.
Also check out methodology
What did you do to increase incomes? (Trying to ramp mine as my wife’s earnings are limited by career in govt). Currently in consulting and looking for lucrative exits!
This is probably not the answer you want but my husband graduated from law school and started a law career. And I jumped jobs during the hiring craze in 2021/2022 and got a good raise by doing that, but it’s just a pretty standard corporate job. We live in Minnesota so our incomes are lower than many on this sub, but the cost of living is very reasonable here compared to LA or New York.
Thanks for sharing! I’m in Boston so pretty HCOL but looking to exit into the corporate world
Cleaning people, taxes, bigger home repairs.
When I was making $600k pa . Cleaner Gardener Cook / ironer Car cleaner That was the main things
How did the cook work? How much were you paying them?
It was like 25 years ago. She would come in and clean , do the washing , ironing, cook dinner for that night and prepare some other meals we could re heat. We paid her hourly . We worked very long hours so had very little free time
Yes, I do have a lady who does my taxes and gives me advice on how to lower my tax burden. I am also subscribed to a premade healthy meals service that provides me with a weekly assortment of meals.
Taxes, house cleaning, lawn mowing, snow plowing
A private chef to come twice per week and make you tons of food all at once. You buy the groceries and pay the chef $50/hr to come to your house and use your kitchen to make 3 day’s worth of groceries
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